Useful Apps for First-Time Windows Users?

pauljoyce asks: "I'm a Mac fan who is intrigued by the possibilities of Apple's Boot Camp software. Now that I have a chance to painlessly dip into the Windows world, what I'd like to ask you is, what Windows software amazes you? I want to build a list of unique, elegant, can't-do-without apps, so all us new Boot-Camp babies can finally experience some of the great innovation happening over on the Windows platform. I roughed in a quick blogpage to collect the info, and to house any useful discussions. It'll probably deteriorate into a flame war at some point, but hopefully I can get a few contributions to each category before then. Would those interested please chime in with their list of favorites?"

Comments

flame war?

[Anonymous Coward]

Asking slashdot for must have windows apps? Nah...

Re:flame war?

[__aaclcg7560]

Must be hurting for a flame war... Nevertheless, everyone one knows that the must have Windows software is 1) firewall, 2) antivirus, 3) anti-spyware, and 4) minesweeper.

Re:flame war?

[Kickboy12]

Not really. Perhaps you were thinking of the term "Microsoft Works".

Re:flame war?

[ozmanjusri]

Must be hurting for a flame war.

That's not how you start a flame war.

The only must have Windows software is fdisk.

Now THAT'S how you start a flame war...

Re:flame war?

[theonetruekeebler]

No, this is:
The only must have Windows software is fdisk.

So you can get rid of Linux?

Games.

[jnelson4765]

Really - there are all these cool games, that are released *years* before they are available on Macs.

That's the only reason I have a Windows box - to play my games, b/c most of them don't run in WINE.

Re:Games.

[Tyler Eaves]

Until you get into any sort of industrial work...

AutoCAD? Nope...
Solidworks? Yea right...
Pro/E? Didn't think so...
Electronics Workbench? Nope...

and the list goes on and on...

Re:Games.

[R3d M3rcury]

Well, I was going to start off this post the various other products that you could use instead of those product names. But I realized that I don't know enough about any of those products.

What might have been more Informative (moderators, note) is to do a little research and see what Macintosh products might replace these. As a person who, I assume, does industrial work, this might have been quite valuable.

You see, it's easy to throw out application titles and say, "See? You can't CAD on a Mac because there's no AutoCAD!" But what about VectorWorks, VersaCAD, or the products from Ashlar-Vellum? A trip to Apple's database gives me those three.

Of course, you have to look for them. I remember being told that Macs couldn't do accounting because there was no QuickBooks. There was plenty of other accounting software available for the Mac. But the only accounting software that this person knew was QuickBooks and if that didn't run a Mac, well, you couldn't do accounting.

Check out some of the Mac solutions. You might be surprised.

Re:Games.

[Politburo]

Sibling references interoperability with other firms as a reason to use AutoCAD. It's actually much deeper than this. Most large public agencies REQUIRE a specific AutoCAD or MicroStation version for you to even be qualified to do work for them. No substitutes. No converting file formats. We had to speed up our adoption of AutoCAD 2000 due to contract requirements.

iTunes!

[jcr]

Best app on Windows, bar none.

-jcr

Internet Explorer

[masterpenguin]

Now you too can be amazed how fast your mac can turn from a sleek machine into a pop up filled zombie email machine.

Games

[biocute]

Play as many PC games as you like.

Re:Games

[Shihar]

The X-Box (or play station or nintendo) is fine for some games, but PCs simply are the no-holds-bar winner in many types of games. When it comes to strategy games, MMORPGs, FPS, and real time strategy games, consoles simply don't cut it. There is a damn good reason why when playing Halo online PC users and x-box users are not allowed to play each other. The reason ISN'T because they can't make the two talk. The reason why the two can't play together is because the keyboard and mouse combination is vastly more powerful then fooling around with those thumb sticks. Console users would get pwn3d.

That is not to say that console gaming is bad. In fact, console gaming kicks the piss out of PC gaming in many ways. I would never want to play Mario or a driving game on a PC unless I had a game pad. Consoles are awesome because you can invite a bunch of friends, crash on the couch with four controllers, and beat on each other. Console games have their place, but so do PC games.

Decent file manager

[Anonymous Coward]

Total Commander, or Salamander Commander. Both are excellent file managers, and they make WinZip un-needed.

Re:Not needed

[jcr]

I don't think for one minute a regular Mac user is going to even take advantage of the Boot Camp software.

Guess again.

A whole lot of Mac users have one or two apps that they have to use for work, that aren't available for the Mac. Also, anyone designing a web site pretty much has to test it with Internet Exploder. Boot Camp is the alternative to wasting desk space for a Dell.

-jcr

first thing I'd get

[yagu]

First app I'd buy is vmware (hey, it might be free now!) so you can run OS X on it.

No, really, all seriousness aside, I am a big user and fan in XP of:

• Photoshop Elements. Make sure you're looking at version 4 at least. I'm quite sure this is also a Mac product, so if you're already playing with that in OS X, never mind. PSE is a light version of Photoshop for about 1/4 the price depending on where you purchase. It has most of the digital manipulation functionality I need, and interestingly has some features VERY useful not found in Photoshop.
• AVG Anti virus for antivirus. I'm using the free version -- so far I've found it excellent, and haven't had any problems with the machine at all (note: it's a good idea to ensure you have de-installed all of the commercial products in the meantime -- aside from not working very well, they can step on other running anti-virus programs).
• the Ubiquitous OpenOffice, and it's free. It can be a resource hog, but I've not had any Office product installed on my XP boxes for years now and never had a need, and OO just keeps getting better.
• The OpenCD which includes browsers, all kinds of cool and fun free software. Pick and choose, these'll take you a long way.
• Picasa for organizing and sharing and printing (and minor editing) pictures. I wasn't much of a believer in this one, but because of its simplicity I recommended and installed and consulted this for friends and family. And finally was hooked -- it really does a great job for all of the organizing I need. (I believe it's probably on the OpenCD). It may not rival the iPhoto (or whatever OS X has), but it's a sweet product.
• MoodySoft Screen capture software. I do a lot of work requiring quick and easy screen captures. This one's not free, but it's not expensive either, and I've tried about a gazillion different products, so far this has been the best for me.
• Any combination, or even full suite of cygwin software. If you have ANY scripting needs, to get real work done and already know shell and unix utils, this is ESSENTIAL (and, it has an excellent X Server).

This is really a tiny partial list. It's a shame I have so many programs I like to run in XP, cuz I always prefer the linux or some variant of unix environment. But, this is a small sample of what gets me through an XP kind of day.

Most important (mini)app for you Mac users

[QuantumG]

If you have a single button mouse, like most Mac users, you'll need to:

1. Press Start
2. Select Control Panel
3. Select Accessibility Options
4. Select the Mouse tab
5. Select the check box Use MouseKeys
6. Press ok.
7. You can now close Control Panel.
8. Press the - key on your numeric keypad.
9. Point your mouse cursor at the window or icon where you want to right click.
10. Press the 5 key on your numeric keypad.

At present I'm not aware of any apps that you can get that will convert Apple+click to a right click. But I'm sure there'll be one available from the Apple web site soon, they seem to be doing everything in their power to make running windows on a Mac as painful^H^H^Hless as running it on any other x86 hardware.

Re:Most important (mini)app for you Mac users

[MustardMan]

Uh... this is only relevant on the MacBook. The iMacs all ship with the two-button mighty mouse, and the mac mini is BYOKDM. And, as another poster pointed out, there are workarounds available. The software is BETA.

Must-have software?

[crossmr]

AVG:
http://free.grisoft.com/
Ad-aware:
http://www.download.com/Ad-Aware-SE-Personal-Editi on/3000-8022_4-10399602.html?tag=lst-0-1
Spybot Search and Destroy:
http://www.download.com/Spybot-Search-Destroy/3000 -8022_4-10401314.html?tag=lst-0-2
Hijack This!:
http://www.download.com/HijackThis/3000-8022_4-103 79544.html?tag=lst-0-1
Firefox:
http://www.firefox.com/
Trillian:
http://www.trillian.cc/
Spywareblaster:
http://www.download.com/SpywareBlaster/3000-8022_4 -10486084.html?tag=lst-0-1
And just about anything from:
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/index.html

Off the top of my head:

[Russ Steffen]

AVG Anti-Virus
Hijack This
Spybot Search and Destroy
Adaware
Microsoft Anti-Spyware (aka Windows Defender)
SpywareBlaster
KeyloggerHunter
ClamAV
avast!

That should get ya started.

Re:What software amazes me?

[catwh0re]

I'm finding this a remarkable piece of poorly thought out PR.

Let's take a realistic point of view. We have a computer user who seems to be well experienced. They even have a nicely designed blog online where you can write in your favourite Windows-only applications. Yet they claim that they have never been a windows user before (Making me wonder where they have been for the past 10+ years where windows has been the ubiquitous consumer & business software platform.)

Now let us pretend for a moment that this actually is some computer user who has already mastered implementing RSS+Atom into their blog, yet simultaneously never even noticed that Windows has existed alongside the Mac OS, nor ever even dabbled in it until the release of boot camp last week(I can hardly imagine them rushing out to a store and purchasing a copy of MS Windows for their not-even year old Intel Mac) So why would they be interested in beta software like MS Max? (Which is really only ever going to be as good as last years version of Apple's iLife?) And why is it that their top 10 Mac apps seem to resemble the top rated list from macupdate.com.

Now lets come back to the real world: If you haven't dabbled in windows ever then you're either a recent jail escapee or very good at digging one's own head deeply into sand. This story doesn't add up, and is coinciding with a new wave of windows advertising. Which is fairly interesting as it's before a major release is due. I think our friends in Redmond are just trying to peddle off some Windows sales. Now excuse me I have to drink coffee with a pretty lady from getty-images.

Re:"Elegant?"

[Farmer Tim]

Forgive him. He's a Mac user, so he doesn't realise that software is supposed to be obtuse to learn, frustrating to maintain and butt ugly.

I have used a PC for 2 weeks

[mogabog]

I don't know how to use a PC. Give me OSX or a CLI and I'm fine. But I only used a PC for the only two weeks I worked in a cube.

I worked in a mac-based office (not a design firm, a real office) and have done years of development exclusively on macs. My servers are OS X servers.

I do not know how to use a PC more than basic point and click. I have no idea what a DLL is. I don't know what it means to flash BIOS. Why? Because I have never needed to know, nor have I wanted to know.

As for the atom feed and stuff, that stuff is basic when you setup a blog. Come on.

Maybe this is astroturf, but I am a very tech savvy individual and have hardly any knowledge of Windows or experience using it. And I love it.

-A

Re:I have used a PC for 2 weeks

[AKAImBatman]

I have no idea what a DLL is.

It stands for "Display List List", which is a list of the Display Command Lists used by your Atari 7800 to render graphics to the television. This amazing technology is based on arcade hardware, making the 7800 the most advanced Atari ever! Just imagine, you'll soon be able to play such amazing titles as:

* Ninja Golf
* Fatal Run
* Desert Falcon
* Scrapyard Dog
* Plus all your favorites like Ms. Pac Man, Donkey Kong, and Mario Bros.!

And that's not all! With your new Atari 7800, we'll include the arcade hit Pole Position II at no extra charge! Isn't Atari just amazing?

Have you played Atari today?

Re:I have used a PC for 2 weeks

[Sycraft-fu]

Well since you mentioned it on Slashdot, you are going to get told anyhow:

A DLL is a Dynamic Link Library. Basically it's a collection of executable code that's not meant to be executed directly, but rather to be called by programs. Orignally the idea was to cut down on resorce usage as you only needed one copy of the code on disk or in memory. These days all programs get their own compy in memory (for stability reasons) and programs often include their own copies on disk to ensure they get the version they want. Their primary uses today are:

1) To allow the easy use of 3rd party code. Say I want to encode MP3s or something, but don't want to write it all myself. Instead, I can just get LAME complied as a DLL, and put calls to that with my software. That also allows for the MP3 encoding section to be upgraded without messing with the main executable.

2) To reconsile incompatible licenses. In my previous example, you could use a LGPL program (LAME) that requires source release without releasing your entire source wince it's called as a library. To link it in your own code would require opening up that code. Conversely, an OSS program can make calls to non-OSS software, with no problems. It never needs access to the code, just calls the library.

Flashing BIOS is much simpler, it simply means to update the system BIOS. The BIOS is what loads when you first turn your system on. Some comptuers call this boot ROM, firmware, or a host of other names. Regardless, on the PC it's what loads when you turn the power on. Sometimes, computer makers with to put out fixes or improvements for that. To flash your BIOS is to apply the new update. Generally these days you just download and run a Windows program and it takes care of it.

Re:I have used a PC for 2 weeks

[FirienFirien]

Bullshit straight back at you. My dad had a Mac SE when I was old enough to think coherently, back when Apple was the field leader and MS was a whelp (yeah, it surprised me too, gizmodo came out with a '20 years ago...' post that was quite informative). Since then it was at each point easier to upgrade within the Apple line rather than switch over to Windows, even though Windows took over as market leader; when I got to university and could pick my first computer, I used the nice 25?33?% apple education discount (UK, don't know what it's like in the US) and got myself a flat panel imac. I was used to macs, and though I'd used programs in windows on the school computers, it was never enough to find out what a lot of the subsystem stuff was. Since then I've bought an iBook, using the handy installation process that copies your entire hard drive and filestructure over so there's no effective change between the first computer and the second. When I left uni and got a job, the office I now work in uses Apple computers exclusively, except one PC for the designers when they need to make a Rhino file in the right format for a windows user to recieve.

Sure, I'm a rare occurence. But while I've wandered around the web enough to come across the terms (especially on bash.org), I've never had a need to find out exactly what they do. I think there's a difference between DLL and .dll files, and I think that BIOS is the sublayer you have to drop to when you want to configure new hardware like RAM or partition your hard drive. But while I've come across the term 'flash BIOS', it means jack shit to me. The only context I have it in is a quick wipe, and that's only because other utilities use the term in that way, and it's a complete guess when applying it to the BIOS as I understand it.

You know why I don't know? Because I don't care. I'm a geek who uses macs, and I don't care about the hordes of people who told me I was doing it all wrong when apple were going down the tube, and I still don't care about the hordes of people who think I'm a moron for using macs. I have no need to know anything at all about the windows subsystem, and so when I come across the terms I see them but ignore them completely. I simply have no need to know what they mean, in the same way that when I see arcane sigs here, I can recognise them as being *nix terms or cryptography (I have familiarity but not mastery of the linux stuff, and I've read Cryptonomicon) - but their meaning isn't obvious simply by looking at them, and I don't have a reason to learn the meaning of each and every single one of them by looking them up or figuring them out.

I may have more understanding of what they are than the average Windows user, just like the gpp. But by no means does that mean I understand them completely, nor that I care to know what they do. I don't need to.

Solution looking for a problem

[imidan]

TFA says that the OP wants these: Productivity (spreadsheet), Graphics, Utilities (spam, anti-virus, FTP etc), Games, Online enhancements (e.g. toolbars etc), Other.

I'm not entirely sure what he wants to do, but most of these categories are just as mature under MacOS as they are under Windows. A spreadsheet application? Well, you've got Excel, you've got OO, and that's about it, for the big one and the up-and-coming, unless Lotus/Quattro is still hanging around out there somewhere. I don't know what state of the art is for spreadsheets on MacOS, but it's gotta be pretty similar to Windows. It's much the same with graphics programs and online programs, really. Utilities? What are you going to do with them? Why do you need a spam filter under Windows if you're checking your mail under MacOS? Do you actually envision booting into Windows and using it for long periods of time?

The only category that I see here where Windows definitely has a lot of options above and beyond MacOS is games. So go for that. Go down to the local video game store and look for some things on the PC shelf that aren't on the Macintosh shelf, and buy them. Over all, you probably aren't missing much.

This post sounds like the OP has a solution (Boot Camp) looking for a problem. And unless you've got a specific problem that really needs solving with Boot Camp, what's the point in using it?

Adding a few more...

[cgenman]

* Crimson Editor An amazingly powerful freeware text / script editor.

  * uTorrent Is there an open source Torrent Client in under 200k? Does it have RSS searching, bandwidth scheduling, automatic resume, and trackerless support? Yes? Oh, good then.

  * As -U- Type. Spell check anywhere. It's a great piece of software, if you can get over the fact that the author barely speaks any english.

  * 3 Plane Soft Screensavers. Ok, they're screensavers. And they're a rip off. But damn they're nice.

  * Trillian. 'nuff said.

  * The Bat! The second best mail client created, behind only KMail.

  * IZarc If there were need for zip clients anymore, this would be the one to have. Also handles about 50 other file standards, integrates really well with explorer, is small and efficient, and did I mention free? Best unzipper out there, including the pay options.

  * Folder Size Shows you how big your folders are. If explorer were made by Apple, it would do this by default.

  * True Crypt Data so secure even it doesn't know if there is more to be found in a file.

  * Thumbs Plus Arguably there are a lot of good applications in this space, and there are ones out there with better interfaces. But it is the only thumbnail application I've ever used that can handle upwards of 20,000 files in a single directory. If you take lots of pictures, this is the one.

  * DVD Decrypter Recently bought out by Macrovision to shut down it's decryptey goodness, DVD Decrypter is really a no-nonsense, no-fuss DVD ripper and burner. Want to rip a movie from a DVD so you can watch it later? One button. Want to rip it back to a DVD? Another button.

  * Microsoft Power Toys Nifty stuff from people who both hate and make the operating system.

And remember to use an antivirus, a firewall, and two anti-spyware suites. My personal favorites are AVG Antivirus, Kerio Personal Firewall, Spybot, and Ad Aware.

my list

[timothv]

File management/explorer replacement: Directory Opus
Music: Foobar2000 0.8.3 (iTunes and dumbed down fb2k annoy me)
Video: Media Player Classic with ffdshow
Browser: Firefox 1.5 with ~20 extensions
CD Ripping: Exact Audio Copy (only Windows can rip CDs properly)
Anti-virus: Avast
Shell: Cygwin with puttycyg or a local ssh server
IM: Trillian (needs to be replaced with a Jabber client + aim/yahoo transport)
Python development: Eclipse with the pydev extension
IRC: Chatzilla
BitTorrent: uTorrent
Webserver: Apache 2
Archive unpacker: IZArc
Mail: Thunderbird
Encryption: Truecrypt
JPEG manager: iView MediaPro3
CD/DVD burning: Nero
Hex editor: XVI32
SSH,SCP: PuTTY, WinSCP
Office suite: Office 2003
Calendar: Outlook 2003
Virtual drives: Daemon Tools
Notetaking: Onenote 2003
Batch image editing: Photoshop CS2
Spoken dictionary: Encarta 2006 Dictionary Tools
Audio quality checking: Nero WaveEdit, EncSpot, Audiochecker
Time syncing: NetTime
Firewall: Sygate (needs to be replaced)
Various system tools: Startup, Tweak UI, Filemon, Peerguardian 2, Diskeeper, EVEREST
Symbolic integration: Mathematica
Packet sniffing: Ethereal
This fun game: Typing of the Dead

And I probably missed a few. Foobar2000, Directory Opus, and Firefox are by far the most amazing.

Re:Not needed

[prell]

Also, anyone designing a web site pretty much has to test it with Internet Exploder. Boot Camp is the alternative to wasting desk space for a Dell.

Or you could use BrowserCam :-)

Picasa

[alphakappa]

Actually, as a longtime user of Picasa on Windows and iPhoto on the mac, I can say that not only does Picasa match iPhoto, it is far superior in usability. The mac is my primary computer and I am an avid photographer and it is only the lack of Picasa on the mac that really drives me nuts about OSX. If you are a mac fan, don't flame me unless you have really used Picasa for some length of time. Here are my reasons:

1. Picasa lets me 'monitor folders', something iPhoto will not let me do. I hate having to 'import' pictures into iPhoto everytime I want to see my new pictures there.

2. Picasa will let me put my photo album anywhere I want, including external drives. There is no straightforward way to change your album location in iPhoto (Yes it can be done, but it's a hack)

3. Picasa will let me add photos to the library without actually copying them to the Picasa storage folder. iPhoto insists on copying all photos to the iPhoto folder everytime you add pictures to it. Why is this important? As a photographer I have tens of gigabytes of pictures that I do not wish to store on the mac hard drive because the storage I have on external drives far outstrips my hard drive size . Also they are organized the way I want them with proper folder names and heirarchies. If I 'import' them to iPhoto, it creates one big lump of a library which I have to organize painfully by hand if I wish to see my original configuration. Also, the folder organization in the iPhoto folder has no connection to the original organization I had.

4. Non-destructive edits. I can touch, crop and do anything I wish to my pictures in Picasa and it doesn't hurt the original picture at all. I can come back later and undo everything I did. If I wish to retain my changes, I can simply export the current state of the picture. On iPhoto, the edits you do are non-undoable once you are done with the edits. Very painful for a photographer who wants to quickly try out some edits before opening up the full-fledged Photoshop.

There are many more, but these are the important ones. As for features Picasa gives almost all the features I expect from a photo organizer (which, to be fair are also available in iPhoto)

Living off the grid -- easier than you think.

[Yaztromo]

Let's take a realistic point of view. We have a computer user who seems to be well experienced. They even have a nicely designed blog online where you can write in your favourite Windows-only applications. Yet they claim that they have never been a windows user before (Making me wonder where they have been for the past 10+ years where windows has been the ubiquitous consumer & business software platform.)

I'm a software developer. I've worked for IBM. I maintain and develop several Open Source software applications. And I haven't been a Windows user since Windows 3.1.

I always have to laugh when some Windows user thinks that it is simply not possible to exist in the computing world without using Windows. However, it's quite a bit easier to live outside the Windows world than you think.

How did I do it? Long before Windows 95 existed, I used a fine 32-bit, pre-emptively multitasking operating system called OS/2, which I used for most of the 1990's. Towards the late 1990's, when OS/2 was on the decline, I started working for IBM as an OS/2 developer, where I also did a lot of Unix/Linux work. Around the same time frame, I started running Linux at home in parallel to my OS/2 machine as a way of running software through X that I didn't otherwise have access to.

With the serious decline of OS/2 in the 2000's, I moved over to Mac OS X (along with running a lot of Unix systems). For the last number of years much of my paid work has been in Java comsulting, where I get to pick what platform I use.

So I haven't had a Windows machine since 1993 at this point. True, I have encountered them here and there over the years, but I've been able to avoid being assigned to a Windows machine in my home or at any place of work I've held in all that time. The trick is damn simple for the most part: be so freakishly good at what you do that people will be happy to comply with your platform requests, and let them know up from you have no interest in working with Windows. So far, it's worked every time here.

Yaz.
Windows Free since '93.

Re:Living off the grid -- easier than you think.

[TheNetAvenger]

I'm a software developer

I hope you don't mean you NEVER use Windows or a newer version than 3.1...

You owe it to yourself to fully understand what is out there, and the development division of Microsoft has done some really cool things in the past 10 years. Not always perfect, but different and worth knowing to at least get ideas or very least know your competition.

Even looking at the *nix market we see the classic 'taskbar' in everything from KDE to GNOME and other variants. It is kind of sad that MS was the first one with a taskbar like this, but it isn't such a bad idea, so I don't mind see others parrot it.

I find too many experienced IT people that I interview and they are non-Windows people which is fine, but when asked what they are working on or why they like one OS, etc.

I find that many times they have NO idea how much the industry has passed them by. I get answers like, I use XXXX because I want a real 32bit OS, or real Multi-Tasking, or I am developing this cool application idea (an idea that has been built into Window or other OSes for YEARS) and they think they are being innovative.

Basically you can't be innovative, unless you know what else is out there.

Getting off of Windows is great, but don't close your mind to the stuff from Redmond, they surprise many great developers sometimes, by statistics alone, it has to happen. For example at the PDC in September they shook up the way a lot of us developers view software, and even some of us are developing on other platforms, their ideas were something good to build from.

I assume you don't mean you haven't used Windows to at least explore the competition, but in case you haven't or others in here haven't, it is worth your time...

Nice VMWare or other tool and at least run a test version somewhere. (Hint, if you are using VMWare or another comperable tool, you can use the 180day Free version of WindowsXP and just reinstall it.)

Bonzi Buddy

[vzzzbx]

Bonzi Buddy, CoolWebSearch, anything and everything from Gator/Claria. Best of all it's all free!

First app...

[JohnnyBigodes]

First important app: "How to right-click!" :p :p :P

Re:I have used a PC for 15 minutes, and it sucked

[1u3hr]

You almost carried that off. But your fatal mistake: just like on a Mac, a right click would bring up a contextual menu. A real Mac bigot would digress for a paragraph to explain why more than one mouse button was unnecessary and inelegant: "Oh, you mean option-click".

Re:I have used a PC for 15 minutes, and it sucked

[elrous0]

No recent macs use BIOS.

Of course not. Between the time you power up a Mac and the time the OS loads, the computer runs on magic !